A Nebraska mother who aided in her daughter’s third trimester chemical abortion and helped burn and bury the baby’s remains was sentenced on Friday to two years in prison.
Jessica Burgess, 42, pleaded guilty in July to tampering with human remains, false reporting, and providing an abortion after at least 20 weeks of gestation — an act which is illegal under state law, NBC News reported.
“Madison County District Judge Mark Johnson sentenced her Friday to one year in prison for each count, with the first two to run concurrently. The sentence for the abortion count was ordered to run after the first two, amounting to a two-year sentence,” according to the report.
Burgess’ attorney sought probation, but the judge “balked at that request,” the report states. The judge countered that Burgess knew she was breaking the state’s abortion law because she initially lied to investigators and went to “extraordinary means” to obtain the abortion pills online instead of through a medical provider.
“I shudder to think, Ms. Burgess, that you have such disrespect for a — call it a human fetus, call it a stillborn child — that you would treat it like yesterday’s trash and not give it some respect in its treatment and disposal,” the judge said. “Our society expects more; it demands more.”
Burgess, who is from Norfolk, Nebraska, admitted during her plea hearing that she helped her then 17-year-old daughter abort her baby. Additional charges of concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician were dismissed as part of her plea, the report states.
Her daughter, now-19-year-old Celeste Burgess, was sentenced to 90 days in jail this summer, as well as two years of probation for burning and burying her baby’s body. She was released from jail on September 11, according to the report.
“The abortion, well into the teen’s third trimester, violated Nebraska law at the time that banned abortion after 20 weeks of gestation. Officials have said Jessica Burgess ordered abortion pills online and gave them to her daughter in the spring of 2022,” according to the report.
Norfolk police began investigating the incident after receiving a tip, and eventually secured a search warrant to obtain access to Facebook messages between the mother and daughter. Prosecutors said those messages revealed that the women discussed the abortion, as well as destroying the evidence. Police subsequently found the burned baby’s remains buried in a field north of Norfolk, the report states.
In one of the Facebook messages, Jessica Burgess allegedly told her daughter how to take the abortion pills, court records show. Another message showed Celeste Burgess saying, “I will finally be able to wear jeans.”
It should be noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends women only take abortion pills up to ten weeks’ gestation — up from the agency’s previous seven-week recommendation. The FDA changed the gestational limit recommendation in 2016, a move which is being challenged in court as part of a larger lawsuit concerning the agency’s approval of the abortion pill.
In May of this year, Republican Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signed a bill that restricts abortion at 12 weeks of pregnancy and outlaws the sexual mutilation of minors in the name of so-called “gender-affirming care.”
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
